I received a visit from the Pope again this morning so I thought that I would share a portion of today's entry with you. Pope Benedict XVI is speaking about the three purposes of Corpus Christi: to counter man's forgetfulness, to elicit his thankfulness and to bring about the unifying power that is at work when many people together are looking at the one Lord. He says that with all of our distractions - the computer, meetings, appointments and the many things that we seem to always be involved in - "we have become appallingly thoughtless and forgetful."
Our rational, everyday consciousness is only the surface of what makes up our soul, but, as the Pope says, "We are so hounded by this surface awareness that what lies in the depths can no longer find expression. Ultimately man becomes sick for sheer lack of authenticity; he no longer lives as a subject: he exists as the plaything of chance and superficiality. This is connected with our relationship to time. Our relationship to time is marked by forgetting. We live for the moment. We actually want to forget, for we do not want to face old age and death...The only way to master time, in fact, is the way of forgiveness and thankfulness whereby we receive time as a gift and, in a spirit of gratitude, transform it."
I can definitely relate to feeling like a pawn to chance when things get so busy that you can't keep your head on straight. It is at those times, thankfully, that the Holy Spirit can somehow break through and help me to see that I need to take a step back, slow down and become more conscious of the Lord in my life. What a great way to look at each moment that we have been given - as a gift. I think that definitely makes me stop and appreciate all that I have in that moment and then it becomes easier to transform that moment into whatever God wills.
God Bless!
